


where dwell the brave at heart

by irnan



Series: mischiefmanaged!verse [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, mischiefmanaged!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:15:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irnan/pseuds/irnan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're all Sorted, one by one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where dwell the brave at heart

This is how Peter Pettigrew comes to Gryffindor House:

 _Well well well, are you sure?_

He clenches his fingers around the edge of the stool and thinks: _yes_. Gold and red, strong and brave, handsome, laughing - all the things he is not, but will make himself. He thinks of those two boys, the dark haired ones, acting as if they'd known each other for years already instead of a few hours - shouting and joking and loving every second of train ride and boat trip and Sorting.

He wants to be those boys.

 _Yes_.

The Hat seems almost to hesitate. _Very well then_.

*********

This is how Albus Potter comes to Ravenclaw House:

 _You can choose_ , Dad said, but that doesn't help because he's eleven and he hasn't got a clue what he wants, except that he doesn't want to be Dark or bad or useless or afraid or ignorant, and the Hat chuckles in his ear and says, _do you know Albus you sound like your father - he didn't know what he wanted either, but he knew what he didn't_.

 _I'm not my Dad_ , thinks Al. _I'm me_.

 _Oh yes. Yes, you are. Tell you what. Let's try a little something. By the way, you've got a nice talent for Arithmancy coming up - remember that, eh?_

"RAVENCLAW!"

*********

This is how Scorpius Malfoy comes to Ravenclaw House:

He’s eleven when he finds out, finally finally, the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and it makes him furious and terrified and frightened and sick. He rages and goes quiet and won’t speak to any of them and cuts his grandparents dead whenever he sees them, and then he goes and makes friends with a Potter and a Weasley and gets himself Sorted into Ravenclaw – quite deliberately, cold-bloodedly, _Slytherinly_.

The Hat is impressed.

Scorpius never regrets it, that one defining choice; but he does regret, later on, the way he used it at first to hurt his father in every way he possibly could.

*********

This is how James Sirius Potter comes to Gryffindor House:

The Hat goes on and says _oh yes another Potter, half a Weasley too oh dear a dangerous combination_.

And James thinks: _there is no way I’m going in any House but Gryffindor, no way, no way_.

 _Hmph_ , says the Hat. _As it happens, you’re quite right_.

*********

This is how Lily Evans comes to Gryffindor House:

 _Ravenclaw perhaps_ , muses the voice in her ear, _good brains, marvellous talent_.

Lily bites her lip. _I know that_.

 _Do you!_

 _Top marks at school._

 _Buuuuuut?_

She says – thinks – it really quick. _I want more. I want to be more. I can be more. I am more_. More than Tuney would want, more than Mum and Dad think. She wants freedom and laughter and the way the world spins beneath her when she swings too high and lets go and flies, hangs in the air for that wonderful second, that shining heartbeat of glory: breathless, terrified, incandescently happy. More sure of herself, the world and her place in it than she ever is when she has both feet on the ground.

 _Send me somewhere I can be all that!_

 _Lily Evans – I shall_.


End file.
